Alt Fest is set to make history when it becomes the first festival to not only be funded by its fans but that asks its fans how they want the money raised to be spent to create a festival for the fans by the fans. Launching today on crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, the Alt Fest campaign aims to raise a minimum of £30,000 that will be put towards creating several parts of the festival including the mainstage headline artists. Every single person who contributes via Kickstarter will then be asked how he or she wants the festival to be developed. Taking place on August 15-17th August 2014 at the beautiful Boughton House in Kettering, Northamptonshire, Alt Fest is going to be the UK’s first truly major outdoor festival celebrating alternative culture, art, music and lifestyles.
Having already raised well over £10,000 via their own DIY crowd-funding campaign and people signing up to Alt Fest’s exclusive Dismembership Scheme, Alt Fest has already booked over 30 bands that the fans asked for via polls on the festival’s website and Facebook profile. The next phase of funding will allow fans to contribute financially towards the budget for booking the main stage headline act, increase the attractions at the festival and increase the facilities on-site including more toilets than any other festival in the UK, more showers and custom built changing areas.
Already booked to appear at Alt Fest are Fields of the Nephilim, VNV Nation, Atari Teenage Riot, Covenant, Front 242, Eisbrecher, The March Violets, Suicide Commando, Diary of Dreams, Alec Empire, Die So Fluid among many others. The funding raised has also allowed the Alt Fest team to plan the festival layout, book a production company to supply the festival infrastructure (staging, lighting, fencing, lockers etc), establish an online presence in the form of a bespoke website, Facebook profile and Twitter feed, appoint a ticketing agent (clubtickets.com), link up with ticketlogic.com to create state-of-the-art wristbands, plan e-teams, start designing merchandise and much more.
Alt Fest signifies a revolution in the festival industry. It is no longer acceptable for festivals to be created by big corporate entities for the benefit of everyone apart from the people who pay, the fans. The team behind Alt Fest aim to make a real change in how festivals are created by giving the power back to the fans once and for all. The brainchild of Dom and Missy, the founders of Club AntiChrist, Alt Fest is the future of the major outdoor festival.
"We aren't a big corporate machine, and we aren't out to fleece our customers. We just want to create and run a festival where every Alternative person can come together to have a good time" commented Missy.
Dom added "Alt-Fest is the peoples festival, everyone can be involved, everyone has a say, every part belongs to the people. It's the people united and working together that will make Alt-Fest successful, the bands, the performers our Alt-festers all united together in a common cause to create an amazing festival that's truly led by its own crowd."
Already a proven model in the world of feature films, Kickstarter has provided a platform for more than 2.5 million people to successfully back more than 30,000 creative projects since the site launched in America in April 2009. It is estimated that around 10% of the films accepted into the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals this year were funded by Kickstarter. In 2012 musician Amanda Palmer raised just short of $1.2million using Kickstarter and relative newcomers Five Iron Frenzy raised $207,980 from their fans, a whopping 693% of the target amount.
